Targeting the right audience at the right place and the right time is a formula that increases the chances of conversion in any marketing campaign. Audience segmentation and timing of approach are already being used by marketers to target their customers, not targeting at the right place is gaining more attention. This focus has made Location-based marketing, a hot topic in the marketing space.
You might be wondering that location-based marketing is something new in the marketing arena, but no, you are wrong if you are thinking so. Location-based marketing has been here from decades and has helped marketers in targeting the audience on the basis of their location. You can say that it was not recognized till now, but thanks to the rise of mobile phones and advancing technologies, location-based marketing has received its identity and are back with more easier and effective potential to empower marketing professionals.
Location-based marketing is a method of marketing that changes depending on the location of the potential client. Rather than treating customers as a uniform essence, location-based marketing adapts to the specific cultural, social, and personal characteristics of the audience by predicting about their habits and preferences on the basis of their location at a particular moment. Technological advances have enabled companies to know much more about their client’s locations so they can target their customers individually.
Before we jump into details of present-day location-based marketing, I would like to start from its use in traditional marketing strategies. So, marketing campaign organizers tried to forecast their message to the people who are likely to view them. In the past, the method of marketing and advertisements adopted by marketers in the cities varied from those in rural areas. This shows that marketers were well aware of the importance of the location of their target audience. For example, you can also have a look at the advertisement banners near the airport, product or services advertised wouldn’t be around the airport but still, it is advertised there because the advertisers are well aware of the financial situation of the viewers.
In the present era of technology, location-based marketing has empowered marketers with the capabilities to personalize content based on the context of the individual users, filling the gap between physical and digital context to provide actionable content to use.
The technology behind Location-based Marketing takes advantage of geofencing, a software feature that uses triggers to send alerts when a device crosses a pre-defined geographic boundary. The objective of location-based marketing is to capture the end user’s attention and turn him into a customer.
If done successfully, location-based targeting improves response rates up to 5 times. According to the reports published by Good Push Index, influenced opens are 293% higher in targeted location-aware campaigns vs broadcast messaging. With an average 62% location opt-in rate and an average 51% of users opting in to receive pop-up messages or push notifications, most applications can reach over a half of their users with their location-based and proximity-triggered pop-up messages.
Why is location-based marketing looked upon as the next big thing in marketing?
Location-based marketing has the potential to enhance numerous major marketing campaigns. Increasing use of smartphones seal the predictions that location-based marketing is going to take center stage in planning marketing strategies. Let’s have a look at the capabilities that can make location-based marketing the next big thing for marketers,
- Augmented Location
Augmented location is redefining the methods of mobile marketing, by identifying the right time to engage with users revamping mobile marketing by empowering marketers to solve problems, to create targeted notifications by utilizing context that would prove relevant and useful. Augmented location with data about the behavior pattern of the users facilitates a brand to develop more timely, customized customer engagement.
- Beacon Technology
Beacons are installed, that send out signals to all the mobile devices in a certain range, to target message to the device. It is an important part of proximity marketing, which is growing as an important method of targeting for the marketers as an individual move from one location to another. Beacon technology offers opportunities such as tracking the visit, location targeting, targeting potential customers with related products, customer mapping, and cross-selling.
- Personalized customer mapping
Location-based marketing enables marketers to mapping a personalized customer journey. Personalizing customer journey contributes to delivering better customer acquisition and experience. Personalizing customer mapping helps marketers in looking and understanding the brand, product or services from the lens of an individual customer.
- Hyper local marketing
Location-based marketing helps marketers in hyper localizing their campaigns. Hyper-local marketing is about targeting the audience in a geographically restricted area or a particular area. It enables marketers to craft extremely relevant and targeted messages to the audience at a targeted location. As Google has discontinued its feature “Nearby Notification” as it led to spamming, marketers are exploring alternatives to engage content to customers without affecting customer experience.
Integration of Hyper-Local marketing efforts in marketing strategies:
- Beacon Technology
- Community-based marketing
- Local Influencers
- Personalized customer experience
- Location-based content and emails
- Mobile app localization
Businesses have started adopting localization strategies on a global scale. They have understood that if a type of idea works in a particular region, it will work in other regions too, with some addition of local flavor. Companies have started investing more in creating localized application versions to suit local requirements for a better customer experience, which creates great opportunities for marketers to tap different markets.
These features of location-based marketing say the story of its uprising, let’s also have a look at the benefits it provides.
Benefits of location-based marketing
In today’s competitive world, location-based marketing empowers marketing professionals in enhancing their performance in various ways.
- Improves mobile marketing strategies
Mobile marketing is boosting the performance of marketing campaigns, as it allows personalized targeting of the audience and helps in delivering better customer service. Location-based marketing enables marketers to give a localized and personalized touch to their mobile marketing strategies.
- Boosts engagement and response rate
Location-based marketing with data empowers marketers in planning strategy to target the right audience at the right time and the right place. This helps in increasing the response rate. Such a detailed marketing strategy also boosts customer engagement and provides an opportunity for businesses to rectify their errors and retarget their audience.
- Better data to generate insights
Location-based marketing helps marketers in focusing on a segmented audience of a particular region. So accumulating data of this segmented audiences adds a filter to the collection of data, hence reducing the collection of invalid data. This data is less in quantity but better in quality which forecasts detailed insights to the marketers.
- Attract more customers
With better data and insights, the audience is targeted with a marketing strategy that is more personalized and localized on the basis of the requirements of the audience. This approach of marketers increases the rate of customer acquisition.
- Increased ROI (Return On Investment)
All the strategies and campaigns of the marketers revolve around delivering better customer experience and also has an eventual aim to improve ROI. As location-based marketing improves the rate of customer acquisition and engagement and optimizes the marketing strategies, it successfully results in increasing return on investment.
Final take from the article
As we have seen that with the help of location-based marketing, marketers are the winners, but we can’t say marketers are the only winners as customers also enjoy its benefits, because of the convenience it provides them with. It undoubtedly is evolving as the most effective method of reaching to the customers, acquiring them, effectively engaging them and also retaining them if needed. All these points predict that location-based marketing is moving towards becoming the next big thing in marketing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aashish Yadav
Content Writer, Martech Cube
Aashish is currently a Content writer at Martech Cube. He is an enthusiastic and avid writer. His key region of interests include covering different aspects of technology and mixing them up with layman ideologies to pan out an interesting take. His main area of interests range from medical journals to marketing arena.